Amnesty International urges Scotland to ban live facial recognition for law enforcement

Amnesty International has called on the Scottish government to prohibit the use of live facial Recognition (LFR), describing the biometric technology as a “mode of mass surveillance” which is incompatible with Scotland’s human rights obligations.

In letters to Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) and Scottish Justice Secretary Angela Constance, the human rights organization also requested a clear and detailed look into Police Scotland’s plans to introduce LFR and a formal assessment of its compatibility with human rights laws.

“Amnesty wants to see a ban on this technology in Scotland and globally,” writes Liz Thomson, acting Scotland programme director for Amnesty International UK.

In her letters, Thompson argues that facial recognition involves “widespread and bulk monitoring, collection, storage and analysis of biometrics-based identification at scale, without consent, and without reasonable suspicion.”

Police Scotland confirmed their decision to use live facial recognition in August. The decision was met with immediate criticism from both lawmakers and rights groups.

Fourteen rights and racial justice organisations, including Amnesty, Big Brother Watch, Privacy International and Liberty, called on the law enforcement agency to “immediately abandon” their LFR plans.

“There is no specific legislation governing police use of this technology, meaning that police forces across the UK are already deploying this technology absent of meaningful accountability or oversight,” Madeleine Stone, senior advocacy officer at Big Brother Watch, said in an August release.

The police say it is currently working on evaluating the technology and related regulation, as well as providing assurances related to bias mitigation. During its last meeting, held on September 25th, the Scottish Police Authority reiterated that the Biometrics Commissioner supports the use of LFR but noted that the public needs reassurances.

According to a survey published earlier this year, the Scottish public is split over the use of  the controversial surveillance system.

In 2020, the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Sub-Committee on Policing held an inquiry into Police Scotland’s LFR plans, finding “no justifiable basis” to invest in the technology. The committee also noted that using live facial recognition would be a “radical departure from Police Scotland’s fundamental principle of policing by consent.”

The technology has been subject to legal challenge elsewhere in the UK.

The Metropolitan Police found itself in court following an incident in which Shaun Thompson, an activist campaigning against knife crime, was incorrectly identified by an LFR system. The Equality and Human Rights Commission plans to provide submissions in Thompson’s case, arguing the Met Police’s current LFR policies go against the rights laid out by the European Convention on Human Rights.

In 2020, the Court of Appeal ruled that the South Wales Police had violated privacy rights, data protection regulations, and equality legislation through the deployment of facial recognition technology.

Article Topics

Amnesty International  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  human rights  |  Police Scotland  |  real-time biometrics